Don't Fall in Love With Abbas Yet

[drdon326]

The success of these anti-terror initiatives, combined with the death of Yasser Arafat, has produced a propitious moment for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Most Israelis are willing to make concessions like pulling out of the Gaza Strip. Most Palestinians are sick of violence. Optimists are convinced that the election of Mahmoud Abbas will solidify this trend and result in a long-awaited deal.

Maybe they're right. But it wasn't encouraging to see Abbas literally embracing top terrorists and referring to the "Zionist enemy." Nor has he ever renounced Palestinians' "right of return," which is tantamount to not recognizing Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. And even if Abbas genuinely believes in peaceful coexistence, it is not clear that he has the will or the power to repress militants who want to drive the Jews into the sea.

All of this suggests that it would be a mistake for the West to embrace Abbas in a bearhug — the same mistake that was made with Arafat in the 1990s. What's needed now is not another Palestinian strongman puffed up by the West, but a vibrant Palestinian democracy with a multitude of leaders. Last weekend's election, in which Abbas had no significant competition and which he won by 40 percentage points, hardly qualifies.

There is no reason to think that most Palestinians want to sacrifice their children as suicide bombers; indeed, Hamas boycotted the presidential election partly because it didn't want its unpopularity exposed. The strongest demands from Palestinians are for more economic growth and less corruption. Until Abbas shows himself willing to seriously address those needs, the West should lavish its largess on independent Palestinian groups, from websites to human rights monitors, not on the dysfunctional Palestinian Authority.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-boot13jan13,1,6098638.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions&ctrack=1&cset=true

==================================================================

compelling

.............................................................

[Trajan]

1. Max Boot ....

Compelling Likudnik Neocon ??? ....

This thread is a less than compelling advocation of views promoted by neoconservative supporters of George W. Bush's ridiculous Middle Eastern policies ...

One day: you will kiss an arab, and love it ....

[drdon326]

2. Reminds me of a hot night in Aruba about 2 years ago......

as for the article...perhaps you could elaborate on what specifically you disagree with.

[QueerJustice]

8. already have....and did....

but he was not a homocidal pervert...

[mike_c]

3. this passage reminded me of something....

This bit reminded me of something that I'd read years ago about South Africa's "right to exist as a white nation:"

Nor has he ever renounced Palestinians' "right of return," which is tantamount to not recognizing Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.

I couldn't find the specific quote, but I found this instead, which summarizes the issue of racial/religious segregation and apartheid in Israel and occupied Palestine nicely. From http://www.schwilk.org/occupations/politics.html

...Ultimately, international opinion rejected an exclusionist South Africa -- but even the most pro-Palestinian mainstream opinion in the US argues for the same solution that the South African Nationalists wanted. This issue exists in a frightening moral vacuum where the US and most so-called liberals refuse to condemn an overtly exclusionist state. Billmon of Whiskey bar quotes a friend who calls Palestine the Death Valley of American progressives. The only consolation I see from this moral vacuum is that it will provide a test by which our grandchildren can judge the individual morality of members of this generation. Small consolation.

Israel is a clearly racist state without civil rights for its subjects in the Occupied Territories, with roads for Jews only, with water rights for Jews only, with land purchase rights for Jews only. Israeli citizens are not immune to repression from the racist state: Israel shoots its own citizens dead if they protest, non-Jewish citizens cannot buy state land and are educated in segregated schools. The fact that so many Americans and Europeans more easily identify with Jewish culture than they did with Afrikaner nationalism makes a celebration of zionist subjectivity no less dangerous. Israel has a "right to exist" only in the sense that South Africa has a right to exist -- that is, not as an ethnically-exclusive state with racist laws. But to point this out is to be overwhelmed by accusations of anti-semitism.

But things only appear to be getting worse. The IDF has successfully tested the waters and learned that it can get away with assassinating American and British peace activists engaged in non-violent civil disobedience. Ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians is favored by about fifty percent of Israeli Jews, according to polls and the settler war on Palestinian farmers is in full gear. Ethnic cleansing and genocide are also advocated by some powerful people in the US. Everybody in the US seems to love the idea of apartheid. Hell, I'd support a two state solution that at least meant an Israeli withdrawal from all post-67 settlements and real sovereignty for a little Palestinian state (not very likely, it seems). But let's not pretend this is any sort of moral solution: it is a pragmatic solution based on Israel's belligerence and unwavering insistence on an ethnically exclusive state. People have a right to exist, not apartheid.

on edit: the original contains hypertext links to news articles and the like to support many of its statements. I did not reproduce those.

[QueerJustice]

9. more garbage...

comparing Israel to Apartheid South Africa means your clueless as to how evil the apartheid regime really was.....totally clueless....

:tinfoilhat:

[newyorican]

10. Well...

Does that mean Desmond Tutu is equally "clueless"?

The suffering of Palestinians under occupation has prompted 630 Israeli army reservists to publish an open letter in Israel stating their refusal to serve in the occupied lands for a "war for the welfare of the settlements in the territories" and the "purpose of dominating, expelling, starving and humiliating an entire people." In an address he gave in 2002, Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu compared the situation in the West Bank to apartheid.

Source Article

A number of Army reservists also appear to be "clueless" as you put it.

At some point the argument that everyone is wrong, except those that agree with me, becomes it's own search for a clue. Apparent to all but those most in need of reflection and self-examination.

[QueerJustice]

11. No but some of us who lived ....

in South Africa during Apartheid know a LOT more than some of you USA observers.....and it was nothing remotely like the situation in SA...unlike myself Bishop Tutu (a great man) never spent much time in Israel...

Did you spend any time in SA or Israel?

[Violet_Crumble]

12. The Occupied Territories aren't part of Israel...

And it's the situation in the Occupied Territories that are correctly called apartheid by Desmond Tutu, not the situation in Israel itself, which isn't apartheid. And anyone who tries to argue that a system that builds roads and towns for one ethnic group, while confining another ethnic group into small areas isn't apartheid is suffering some serious denial issues...


Violet...

[eyl]

13. Except

that you failed to mention that the "roads for one ethnic group" were only constructed after that ethnic group was being shot at regularly on the regular roads...

[Violet_Crumble]

14. And you fail to mention...

those settlements and the fact that the territory is occupied. So, explain how it isn't apartheid? If I shoot at someone who invades my home, you think it's okay for them to start building inside my home and to top it off, build invader-only roads giving easier access to it?

Violet...

[On the Road]

4. Look at This Bait-and-Switch:

Nor has he ever renounced Palestinians' "right of return," which is tantamount to not recognizing Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.

Now it's gone from Israel's "right to exist" to their right to prevent the original inhabitants from ever returning to their homes. All by the little addition of "as a Jewish state" (where's that in the UN mandate?). And any leader who wants to negotiate repatriation is associated with terrorists who want to drive Israel into the sea. Wonderful.

So Mahmoud Abbas, the hand-picked nonviolent conciliatory moderate, is being attacked because he wants to keep negotiating the right of return? Now being a conciliatory is not enough -- he has to somehow avoid dealing with probably the largest constituency outside the Palestinian authority?

Mark my words -- this is the beginning of a campaign to depict Abbas as someone who's a closet terrorist and cannot be trusted for a peace deal. In order to prevent peace, he's going be turned into another Arafat so everyone can say "What happened? We wanted peace so badly but we just can't deal with these people!"

I swear, these Israelis make Fox look like pikers in the spin department. I am absolutely incensed by this kind of propaganda, but what can you expect?

[bemildred]

5. Boot is a well-know neocon {f|t}ool.

However I agree with him here, the blather and drool about Abbas is
quite unrealistic at this point, and support for NGOs would be a big
help regardless of what happens on the political front. The problem
with dumping the PNA, however, is that it leaves the field open to
other organizations that one might like even less.

[newyorican]

6. I thought that was the whole idea...

to have the least appealing representative for Palestinian interests as possible. Sort of a built in scapegoat.

[bemildred]

7. Only if they are ineffective.

Scapegoats are fine as long as they are not effective.
An effective scapegoat can be much worse that an ineffective stooge.
Of course, unappealing is good either way.

The main issue with Arafat (whatever one might think of him) was that
he had a strong independent political following, stature you might say,
and thus could not be bullied, witness what happened at Taba, again
whatever you might think of that. Abbas has no such political strength.

The problem is that this will leave a vacuum, and that lack will most
likely be filled by Hamas and the like. Witness the attack in Gaza
today:

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/527106.html

Significantly, three militant groups claimed joint responsibility for the attack, Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees, and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Abbas' Fatah movement.

Edit: Notice that it is "Abbas' Fatah movement" now.

[Djinn]

15. damn

and I was just about to send him this mushy valentines day card...